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Architecture must speak, says renowned architect Andy Wen
Andy Wen was born in Taiwan and migrated to the United States when he was young. In the1990s, he received his Master of Architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and later went to China and obtained a Doctoral degree from Beijing Tsinghua University before returning to Taiwan to teach in Ming Chuan University where he later became the Head of Architecture Department. He was also a professor at Tsinghua University and the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Andy’s design expertise covers a wide spectrum of building types. He was involved in numerous projects including mixed commercial developments, educational projects and many more. He attaches great importance to the cultural connotation of architecture and believes a good architecture can tell story by itself and continuously enriches its meanings with the interpretation of different individuals.Aedas is an internationally renowned architectural firm with architectural works all over the world. Not long ago at the BAU Congress China 2017, renowned architect Andy Wen, Aedas Global Design Principal, accepted an interview with The Paper • Art Review (www.thepaper.cn) to share his concept on architectural design. According to Andy, in addition to fulfilling functional needs, architecture should also be telling stories and be connected to the local history, environment and context in order to become a city icon and for the city to be unique and stand out.
Having worked in the Mainland for more than 20 years, Andy witnesses the homogeneity of cities that are growing rapidly. He hopes that an architecture can echo with the history, environment and culture of where it is located so that the city can have its character.
Expression of an architecture: Open and two-way
To Andy, architecture must speak. In modern architecture, people can easily see the building form and new technology, but they cannot read it. ‘Architecture is more than just fulfilling functional needs. Functionality is fundamental yet secondary. Architecture should be readable.’ For all the great architecture in history, people are always amazed and at the same time curious about the meanings behind them. And in between the interpretation of the individual and the impression given by the architect, a dialogue is created – it is where the charm lies.
Standing in front of ancient Greek temples, one may wonder about the original purpose of the sculptures and stone pillars, or stories told by them about God or human beings. Different temples tell different stories. Andy believes that people’s interpretations may sometimes go wrong, but both right and wrong will become unique to the architecture. Interpretations by different individuals have gone beyond the meaning of an architecture, history is moving forward with new interpretations.
Andy believes that the ideographic function of the building is a two-way relationship somewhat similar to the contemporary artworks and the appreciators. Feedbacks about the architecture are up to the viewers. From this perspective, architecture are always ‘unfinished’. In his book PARABLES – Architecture with Hidden Secrets, Andy tries to categorise his works based on the classification of fables, and discusses the narrative nature of architecture. As you see from his design of the Taipei European School Yangmingshan Campus Redevelopment project, which has aroused people’s long-term memory of the traditional Chinese book cases; and the Hengqin International Financial Center in Zhuhai which tells the story of the dragons and the sea, inspired by famous painting ‘Nine Dragons’; and the office building Lè Architecture in Taipei which imitates a pebble along the Jilong River; they all tell stories.
Drawing on local resources: connect the architecture with its local community
Andy likes to look for an iconic object from the location of the architecture at the beginning of the design, and uses it as a starting point to the story to be told by the building. In his opinion, the architecture should be area specific and connect to the local history, environment and context in order to become a city icon and for the city to be unique and stand out.
Taking the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Central Building in Suzhou as an example, Andy drew inspiration from the Taihu stones, an essential landscape element in the famed Suzhou gardens, and established the connection between the building and the place with the imagery of the Taihu stones. The heavily weathered limestones have holes and crevices and are of unique shapes due to uneven erosion. The design concept of the building is based on the organisational form of its internal space with the cube penetrated by a series of voids which serve to differentiate and interconnect the internal functions. Apart from drawing inspirations from the Taihu Stones, Andy did not explain much of the building’s concrete meaning or the connection of the architecture with the city. He leaves it for people to interpret, just as what he wrote in the book, ‘to explain an implied meaning may obliterate the true identity of the architecture, undefined metaphors tend to be more expressive.’
By drawing on the local resources, Andy hopes to bring vitality and personality to the city through his building designs. His projects, the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Central Building in Suzhou, the Chongqing Xinhua Bookstore Group Jiefangbei Book City and the Hengqin International Financial Center, all embody his vision. ‘Landmark buildings often become urban icons, and only if an architecture embeds the historical connotation of the city, it will bring change to the city. Nowadays many cities in China look similar to those in foreign countries, but in fact every place has a different culture, a city should reflect its unique characteristics,’ said Andy.
Traditional or modern: evolution in cultural continuity
Andy received education in China and the United States and is familiar with the differences between Eastern and Western cultures. The result of diverse education and cultural backgrounds have had a significant influence on his architectural design. ‘I am very much inspired by the idea of “harmony between nature and human beings” in traditional Chinese culture. I want architecture to be sustainable. This means more than just the environmental sustainability, but also in that architecture can be compatible with the environment, and well integrated into the development of the society. I have developed open-minded thinking from the western learning approaches, and I challenge stereotypes and want to break them down.’
Chongqing Xinhua Bookstore Group Jiefangbei Book City Mixed-use project is co-designed by Andy Wen and Aedas Global Design Principal and Chairman Keith Griffiths. The project draws inspirations from ‘A Mountain City Embraces Books’, derived from the well known geographic beauty of Chongqing which is also named ‘Mountain City’.
Deconstructing the original content and integrating the, with the society is a ‘revolutionary’ component Andy expects architecture to have. In the construction of the Chongqing Xinhua Bookstore Group Jiefangbei Book City Mixed-use project, since Xinhua Bookstore is the core of the project, the building draws design inspiration from an ancient Chinese prose ‘knowledge brings wealth’ to integrate book into the cultural elements of Chongqing. The building unfolds stepping terraces in an elegant form of a rolling book scroll implying the spirit of wisdom and knowledge. The stepped architecture not only reveals the geographic beauty of Chongqing but also interacts with the surroundings and rejuvenates the city landscape. Andy Wen explains that although the project is a super high-rise building, the design of the interior space is deeply connected with the people. ‘The cultural connotation is better presented in an architecture’s interior space, therefore it is interesting combining the appearance of the building and its interior space,’ said Andy.
‘The meaning instead of building form is more important for an architecture,’ said Andy. In the face of nontraditional and modern architecture, he believes that one should reflect on how to reproduce the complexity and energy that existed in the past and connect them with contemporary society, pop culture, trends, abstract metaphors presented by mass media, and create a revolutionary architecture with the combination of learning and denial. ‘Looking back in history, in most cases, only revolutionary achievements can last in the long run.’
